Ponies

As parents of members of The Pony Club we occasionally are called upon to play a major role in the catering at Special Events. Like selling choc-ices and putting hamburgers in the magnetron. Or following reams of ponies making a pointless trip through the woods and then all the way home again. The following are photos from such a recent event. Being bored waiting for ponies, and resisting the temptation to put hidden ropes and wires across their path, I pointed my camera at Other Things. I was still bored, but now I can share my boredom.

They'll be coming along here any day now

Some leaves to look at while we wait

And a bit of wood

Still nothing

And about time too...

Gold and Silver - should they not be under armed guard?

A beauty

And another. Bernadet at the Pony Club with the correct Country Shirt.

More horses and things, and premiere of our latest horsey movie

Once in every two weeks, it is my duty to get up early and escort a number of mounted young ladies through the woods to the Pony Club. And there to drink weak coffee from a cardboard cup made from stiff blotting paper that slowly gets soggy and collapses. And stare in numbed stasis as ponies go round and round and round again and jump over fences as high as match-boxes. For hours and hours.

Wishing to share this excitement with you all in the past, I strapped the video-camera to my trusty velocipede and filmed away. The results were very good. Until I tried to get the tape out of the camera in order to put in a new one on that blustery day. The tape cassette did emerge, but the tape stayed put and your humble scribe was almost strangled in a web of thin, brown streamers and my head looked like a cellophane-wrapped toffee-apple. My masterpiece was lost. Apparently the camera is not shock-proof. I sent it to E-Care for repair. There is a basic charge of 10 euros to which will be added costs of material, labour and transport. Should this ammount exceed 140 euros, one will be contacted to determine if one really wants to go ahead. I have the camera back in working condition, with the bill which reads:

Basic charge 10.00
Material 5.00 (a 'clip')
Transport 7.00
Administrative costs 12.00
Labour 105.99
------------
Total 139.99
------------
....which of course is within the 140.00 limit and no contact with the customer required. The world is as full of corporate shysters as it ever was.

Lessons having been learned, I resolved to treat the precious camera with loving care. This time I would not strap it to the bike, but would hold it in my hand. While riding a crummy bicycle along muddy, rutted forest paths with the other hand doing the steering, and with only the viewfinder to see where I was going. My first mistake was to leave the zoom zoomed in. I saw a woman with two scruffy dogs in the distance and wondered why the dogs were barking at me and the woman gesticulating wildly. Suddenly they loomed up and filled the viewfinder and I almost mowed them down. She called me a 'klootzak' which always makes me die laughing when the people here call each other scrotums (or is that scrotae). Enough of this banter, you are anxious to know about the newest epic. It was hard to come up with anything better than our earlier successes.
Who will ever forget 'Static Stallions in a Stall', 'Heiloo Hanghengsten', 'Doelloos Dravers', 'Shuffling Shetlanders', 'Arabiers in Apathy', 'Fresian Tedium' and of course 'Vier Veulens in Verveling'.

We now proudly bring you

The Boring Ponies

Halfway through, there is a real mangling of man and bicycle as I watched in horror an Impending and Inevitable Accident loom into the viewfinder. Knowing that if I damaged the camera the subsequent bollocking would be both severe and public, I kept my camera hand in the air and ignored everything else as I crashed to the ground, my fall cushioned by sharp flinty stones and cruel metal protuberances of the bicycle. All recorded live. Having almost lost my life to bring you this, it is your duty to sit through all 10 minutes. Come with me, and together let us plumb the depths of mediocrity.

More horses and things - the Pony Club

Last week we went to the Pony Club where Emma and Merel have regular lessons, and every so often take part in competions to earn points for promotion up the Horsey Ladder of Success. The dressage in the morning went quite well, both earned a point. Dressage, for those not particularly interested in it, is almost as exciting as watching tortoises hibernate. I saved the camera for the jumping, which is a bit like motor-racing. Nothing much really happening, but always the lucky chance of a horrendous accident, a real mangling. Both Merel and Emma were disqualified for not going over the fences, that being the object of the exercise. And in Merel's case, for actually galloping backwards, which I thought was rather clever and should have been rewarded rather than penalised. So no photos of the jumping.

Some children are so poor that they cannot afford horses. The Pony Club lets them pretend and run around the course to help them cope with thier social deprivation.



















Why can't the The Horse do it in the Pony Club? Perhaps it's the posh jacket and the white trousers. The lens of the camera distorts the picture. The fence is actually 2.5 meters high.


















Yes, alright, don't look so smug, just because you can ride a horse and make it jump a bit.























Of course, if you really want to know how to ride:
Such a noble posture! Horse and rider as one, a merging of minds, supreme confidence in thier abilities. A masterclass!




















Meanwhile, this bastard has been sitting on the fence waiting for a power cut so that he can break through my electronic defences. Perhaps he already has. I haven't seen many fish lately

Another masterpiece from the late Larry Parkes

HORSE POLE VAULT

Horses and things

Some more stuff found while scraping the bottom of the camera. This is the bridge which Rosa and Katinka usually negotiate quite safely on the way to the Pony Club for a lesson. Last week it went completely wrong. Merel on Katinka went first without a problem, but Rosa with Sophie on board stopped in the middle and then decided to back off, but unfortunately not in a straight line. Happily the drop is not so large, quite unsuitable for bungy jumping, and the mud is extremely soft, black and squidgy to break one's fall. And it stinks. Poor Sophie and the horse made a graceful backward dive. The horse scrambled out one way and Sophie the other, while I was still deciding which one to jump in after and save. My indecision saved me from a smelly mud bath. Both horse and Sophie were unharmed, although they had both turned black by now. I myself recieved a nasty drop of black mud on the tip of my nose which quite ruined my handkerchief. We will not be using this bridge again.



Even shit-shoveling can be fun if you are in good company.


Merel with Oscar, a Shitland Pony of our neighbour


Theres something irritating on my back!


Ah! Thats rubbed it off!


Look carefully at this picture of Emma jumping with Katinka for 10 minutes while repeating the words 'Tense, nervous headache'.

Paarden en veulens gespot

Tijdens een fietsritje door Heiloo kon ik het niet laten om even een paar foto's van de pony's en veulens van Stal Sprenkeling te maken. Ze lopen deze zomer heerlijk buiten op het land. Ook de 2 moeders met veulens, heel leuk om te zien.




En nog een filmpje van de veulens op Youtube

Einde vakantie Katinka en Rosa

Gisteren hebben we Rosa en Katinka weer van het land gehaald.

De paarden hebben twee weken mogen genieten van het verse gras. Even geen meiden die van alles van hen vragen. Maar nu moeten ze weer aan de bak.
Eigenlijk waren ze heel blij dat we ze kwamen ophalen. Ze stonden op het land met een hele groep paarden en pony's. Bij aankomst kwamen ze allemaal angegaloppeerd, ze wilden allemaal wel mee naar stal. Wat een rotweer, veel regen en wind. Met moeite konden we de anderen tegen houden, nee jullie vakantie is nog niet afgelopen, jullie mooten nog blijven! Je zag ze denken, ik wil niet meer, ik wil terug naar stal. Katrien probeerde nog om met Katinka mee door het hek te glippen, maar we hadden haar op tijd in de gaten. Jammer dan...
Gelukkig wordt het de komende week weer mooi weer, we hoeven ons dus niet schuldig te voelen.

Gadgets first steps

A bit out of sequence now that he is already galloping like a racehorse, but here is a short video of Gadget's first few minutes. The film is a bit patchy because it was night.

Gadget Video en hier was hij 2 dagen oud.

July 2008 - Even horses need holidays

Katinka ('The Horse') and her best pal Rosa went to the meadow today where they will spend the next two weeks. During this time, they will not have to walk around with people on thier backs telling them what to do, nor go round and round on the end of a rope while someone swishes a long whip at them. And instead of standing all day in a desert of dust, they will be doing the Sprenkeling Survival Course.

Do you think we will survive the course, Tinka?

They will be left all alone in a very large field, with only fresh water to drink and lush grass and sweet clover to eat. "It sounds tough, but I'll do my best", says Katinka.

Never wash wool at 90 degrees

And of course, where there are horses there are flies. And where there are flies, there are swallows.

Hey! Someone just rode off on our restaurant!














I can't go with them on holiday because I'm too young. I've just been born and my name is Gadget. Thats my mum's foot behind me. She's called Flair, and I think she just sneezed all over me. I feel wet and slimy. Watch this space. There will be more photos of me as I grow up. Because I'm so cute.